Chapter 8 Liabilities Mateo
Liabilities
Mateo
Iopen my eyes to dust and smoke.
Lights flicker as they dangle from the ceiling. My ears ring. My shoulder aches when I roll over.
Isla is lying next to me. She looks serene, her expression at odds with the blood dripping from her nose.
“Isla,” I say, my voice muffled beneath the buzzing in my ears. I edge closer to her through broken glass. “Wake up. We have to move.”
Isla’s brows knit, her eyes squeezed shut as I haul her from the floor and onto my lap. Scratches crisscross her skin. Blood trickles over her plump lips and I brush it away, fear burning in my chest. I thought I’d forgotten what it felt like.
Another explosion rocks the building, and I cover Isla with as much of my body as I can.
When I lift myself away, she’s staring at me, her eyes filled with pain.
“The blast doors won’t hold,” I say as I help her stand. She wobbles on her feet. “We can’t delay.”
Isla only nods. I loop her arm over my shoulders and we limp toward the elevator at the far end of the lab.
“There’s a tunnel at the lower level.” I let Isla go to push the damaged elevator door open. A burst of hope wedges itself between my ribs when I see the car in the basement level.
When I turn to retrieve Isla, she’s already hobbling toward me with the lay-flat fire hose clutched to her chest. Adrenaline fuels me as I tie the hose to one of the steel guide rails in the elevator shaft.
I’m helping Isla into the darkness when she snaps into motion, withdrawing her gun and firing at something behind me.
A masked man falls to the floor with a grunt. And I know more will be close behind.
“Go, Isla.”
“Hold on,” she says. “Víbora has a plan.”
Isla shifts her aim to our workstation, where large plastic containers of her ammonia concoction and sodium hypochlorite are lined up on the table.
With five shots, she ruptures each one. A heartbeat later, a yellowish haze starts to lift from the spilled liquid.
Another two men rush into the room toward us but stop as though hitting a wall when they near the gas, coughing violently and clutching their throats.
Isla gives me a devious little grin, blood coating her teeth. “Now we go,” she says, then starts descending the hose.
In that instant, I know it. I’m in love with this woman.
With a final glance at the dying men, I grip the hose and follow her into the shadows.
Isla is making good progress beneath me, confidently climbing down the hose even though the drop of five stories would be deadly. My hand wraps around something sticky as I follow. When I pull my palm away and tilt it toward the light from the open door above, it shines with a crimson streak.
This is more than the blood from her nose. A lot more.
My heart drops as though falling to the basement floor.
“You’re bleeding,” I call after her.
“I’m okay.” Her voice is steady. But I’m not sure she’s telling the truth.
Within a few moments that feel like a lifetime, we reach the roof of the elevator car. Isla pulls the hatch. With my gun drawn, I scan the interior with my phone’s flashlight before dropping inside. I reach up and catch her, receiving a pained grunt in reply.
“Where?”
“My thigh.” She looks down and I follow her gaze. Blood seeps through her torn leggings. Without hesitation, I reach behind my head and pull my shirt off, bending to tie it above the wound. “I’ll be fine.”
It’s deep, bleeding steadily. Even if it’s not critical, it’ll slow her down. In our business, that makes her a liability. And when I rise to face her, I’m sure it’s what she’s thinking. That my chances are better on my own.
I pass her and pry open the elevator doors. As soon as I’m sure the hallway is clear, I return to Isla’s side to wrap her arm across my shoulders and take her weight.
“Come on, Víbora. We’re nearly there.”
We pause at the first corner. The second. The exit to the tunnel is in sight. I take the key fob from my back pocket and hold it to the reader, unlocking the heavy steel door. The scent of damp stone floods my lungs, utility lights casting a yellow glow across the narrow passageway.
There’s a metallic bang from the direction of the elevator. Then another. Distant voices. Barked instructions.
They’re on our tail.
When I turn to Isla, her pretty hazel eyes are fierce with determination. But I see pain too. I see the creeping exhaustion it brings.
I grasp her shoulders and back her across the threshold.
“The tunnel leads to the basement of the shop across the street. There’s a back entrance to Calle de Espartinas. I’ll be right behind you.”
Isla takes a breath as though she’s ready to mount a protest, but I don’t give her the chance when I press my lips to hers.
The kiss is only as long as the beat of a heart. But it sears itself into my memory. The warmth of her touch. The scent of caramel. The taste of sweetness and regret.
There’s so much more I want to tell her when I let her go.
I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again.
I wish we could have met in a different life.
I thought we’d have more time.
But I don’t say any of those things. I tell her the only thing that matters now instead:
“Don’t look back.”
Just like the kiss is etched into memory, so is the flash of panicked betrayal on her face when I shut the door between us.
The lock clicks into place. She bangs on the steel. Calls my name. The silence that follows cuts nearly as deeply as the sound of her voice.
With a single kick to the fob reader, I disable the device to prevent anyone from following her.
And then I kill everyone who tries to get close.
The two men who creep from the elevator.
A third in the stairwell. I kill four on the first floor who are standing guard in the rubble of the explosion.
I keep working my way through the building.
Pausing. Shooting. Stalking forward. Shooting again.
There are sirens out front. But I keep rising higher, killing every enemy I find.
But when I reach the third story, I make a mistake I’ve never made before.
Distraction.
I kill one man with my knife in a hallway.
I’m thinking about how satisfying it is to know he’ll never find Isla as my blade slides through his flesh.
For a split second, I imagine her on a distant beach, shining locks of her mocha-brown hair lifting in the breeze, hazel eyes glimmering in the sun. She’s smiling. Carefree.
In that singular moment of distraction, I don’t see the man who exits an office down the hall with his gun raised.
And I know I’m going to die.
A shot rings out. I expect the pain, but it doesn’t come.
The man down the hall slumps against the wall, leaving a streak of crimson as he falls.
Isla limps into the corridor, a sheen of sweat shimmering across her brow. Her face is pale. But her expression is lethal, and hope crackles to life in my once-dormant heart.
“You,” she snarls, brandishing her gun in my direction as I try not to smile. “You pissed me off.”
And then she drops to the polished floor.